We do everything we can to ensure we provide the best service possible to everyone who attends our practice.

However, we are aware that things can go wrong resulting in a patient feeling that they have a genuine cause for complaint. If this is so, we would wish for the matter to be settled as quickly, and as amicably, as possible. We hope that most problems can be sorted out easily and quickly, often at the time they arise and with the person concerned. If your problem cannot be sorted out in this way and you wish to make a complaint, we would like you to let us know as soon as possible– ideally within a matter of days or at most a few weeks – because this will enable us to establish what happened more easily. If it is not possible to do that, please let us have details of your complaint:

Within 6 months of the incident that caused the problem; or

Within 6 months of discovering that you have a problem, provided that is within 12 months of the incident.

The practice operates an in-house complaints procedure. In the first instance please contact the practice manager Amanda Brown by letter, telephone or in person, so your complaint can be investigated and dealt with quickly. It is our policy to give you a full explanation and advise you of the outcome.

The surgery has a Patient Group that meet on a regular basis to discuss issues raised by the patients and practice. If you have any suggestions please put them forward in writing to the manager. All suggestions will be welcomed. If you would like to join the Patient Group or know someone who would, please speak to the practice manager.

POhWER is a charity and membership organisation. They provide information, advice, support and advocacy to people who experience disability, vulnerability, distress and social exclusion.

Last year they provided direct advocacy to over 18,000 people and handled 146,000 contacts for information and advice. Over 70,000 self help materials were downloaded from their website.

POhWER is one of the largest providers of advocacy services in the UK and England's largest provider of NHS Complaints Advocacy

For more information please feel free to take a look at the POhWER leaflet or website. See the links below.

Patients wishing to make a complaint are advised to contact PALS or NHS England initially

FREEPOST RSST-SCJJ-SRBJ

OR

PO Box 16738

Redditch

B97 9PT

Tel. 0300 311 22 33

Confidentiality & Medical recordsThe practice complies with data protection and access to medical records legislation. Identifiable information about you will be shared with others in the following circumstances:

To provide further medical treatment for you e.g. from district nurses and hospital services.

To help you get other services e.g. from the social work department. This requires your consent.

When we have a duty to others e.g. in child protection cases anonymised patient information will also be used at local and national level to help the Health Board and Government plan services e.g. for diabetic care.

If you do not wish anonymous information about you to be used in such a way, please let us know.

Reception and administration staff require access to your medical records in order to do their jobs. These members of staff are bound by the same rules of confidentiality as the medical staff.

Access to recordsIn accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and Access to Health Records Act, patients may request to see their medical records. Request should be handed in to the practice in writing with all information you request. There may be subject to an administration charge. No information will be released without the patient consent unless we are legally obliged to do so.

Freedom of informationInformation about the General Practioners and the practice required for disclosure under this act can be made available to the public. All reques

NHS summary care record- Your emergency care summaryWe (the NHS in England) are introducing a new electronic record called the Summary Care Record (SCR), which will be used to support your emergency care.

This is being introduced to improve the safety and quality of patient care. It will give healthcare staff faster, easier access to essential information about you, to help provide you with safe treatment when you need care in an emergency or when your GP practice is closed.

We are telling you before a Summary Care Record will be made for you so that you have time to think about your choices. You will receive a letter informing you about the creation of the Summary Care Record.

You can choose to have a Summary Care Record: You do not need to do anything, this will happen automatically You can choose not to have a Summary Care Record: You need to let your GP practice know by filling in and returning an opt-out form that you receive with your letter.

For more information about Summary Care Records and your choices visit http://www.nhscarerecords.nhs.uk/ . ts for such information should be made to the practice manager.

The NHS operate a zero tolerance policy with regard to violence and abuse and the practice has the right to remove violent patients from the list with immediate effect in order to safeguard practice staff, patients and other persons. Violence in this context includes actual or threatened physical violence or verbal abuse which leads to fear for a person’s safety. In this situation we will notify the patient in writing of their removal from the list and record in the patient’s medical records the fact of the removal and the circumstances leading to it.

Freedom of Information Act 2000

(Guide to information provided by GPs under the model publication scheme)

Introduction

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) requires all public authorities to adopt and maintain a publication scheme. In 2008 the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) introduced a single generic model publication scheme, for adoption by all public authorities that are subject to FOIA.

The model publication scheme commits a public authority to ‘produce and publish the method by which the specific information will be available so that it can be easily identified and accessed by members of the public’. This is a very general scheme based on the principle that all public authorities need to recognise the public interest in the transparency of the services provided for and paid for by the general public. It is a commitment to make information easily available to the public.

General practitioners (GPs) providing primary medical services under most contracts with the NHS in England and Wales and with HSC Northern Ireland are public authorities in respect of information relating to those services.

Note: The publication scheme is only for information held as a public authority.

The model scheme must be adopted in full, unedited and promoted alongside the guide to information. Public authorities are not required to inform the ICO that they have adopted the scheme; we will assume they have done so unless we hear otherwise.

A public authority is in breach of FOIA if it has not adopted the model scheme or is not publishing in accordance with it.

To assist GPs, we have produced this template guide to information. The template will help them to draw up their guide to information, indicating what information they will provide, how it will be provided and whether any charge will be made for its provision. They should consider expanding elements of it to provide greater explanation and additional information, where this can be done. For example, if there are specific plans for the provision of NHS/HSC services these could be detailed. It is not necessary to submit the guide completed by the practice to the ICO for approval.

This and the model scheme document itself form the basis of the publication scheme commitment by general practitioners.

Information included in the guide to information

The template lists the information that we think GPs hold and should make available within each class. When completed, this will provide a list of all the information the GP will make routinely available, explain how it can be accessed and whether or not a charge will be made for it. GPs must:

state how the specific information can be obtained and if there is a cost involved;

complete the relevant columns in the template guide; and

ensure the public can access the completed guide and the information listed in it.

The guide, like the model scheme document itself, does not need further approval by the Information Commissioner.

GPs should note that they are not expected to routinely publish all information; for example, where they do not hold it or where it is publicly available elsewhere or is exempt. We list such circumstances below.

We would expect GPs to make the information in the guide available unless:

they do not hold the information;

the information is exempt under one of the FOIA exemptions or Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR) exceptions, or its release is prohibited under another statute;

the information is readily and publicly available from an external website; such information may have been provided either by the GP or on their behalf. The GP must provide a direct link to that information;

the information is archived, out of date or otherwise inaccessible; or

it would be impractical or resource-intensive to prepare the material for routine release.

If the information is only held by another public authority, the GP should provide details of where to obtain it.

Datasets: publishing datasets for re-use

Public authorities, including GPs, must publish under their publication scheme any dataset they hold that has been requested, together with any updated versions, unless they are satisfied that it is not appropriate to do so. So far as reasonably practicable, they must publish it in an electronic form that is capable of re-use.

If the dataset or any part of it is a relevant copyright work and the public authority is the only owner, the public authority must make it available for re-use under the terms of a specified licence. Datasets in which the Crown owns the copyright or the database rights are not relevant copyright works.

The Datasets Code of Practice recommends that public authorities make datasets available for re-use under the Open Government Licence.

The term ‘dataset’ is defined in section 11(5) of FOIA. The terms ‘relevant copyright work’ and ‘specified licence’ are defined in section 19(8) of FOIA. The ICO has published guidance on the dataset provisions in FOIA. This explains what is meant by “not appropriate” and “capable of re-use”. One of the reasons why it may not be appropriate to make a dataset available for re-use might be that the information is covered by an exemption under FOIA. GPs do not have to publish in their publication schemes any information that would be exempt from disclosure in response to a FOIA request; eg patient records.

Fees and Charging

Information available through a GP’s publication scheme should be readily available at a low cost or at no cost to the public. If a GP does charge for this information, we expect the charges to be justifiable, clear and kept to a minimum.

Charges may be made for activities such as printing, photocopying and postage as well as information that the GP is legally authorised to charge for. Anyone requesting information must be informed of any charge before the information is provided. GPs may ask for payment before providing the information. Guidance on our website: Charging forinformation in a publication scheme provides more details.

If the GP charges a fee for licensing the re-use of datasets, they should state in the guide to information how this is calculated and whether the charge is made under the Re-use Fees Regulations or under other legislation. The GP cannot charge a re-use fee if they make the datasets available for re-use under the Open Government Licence.

FOI requests and the publication scheme

It is important to note that a publication scheme simply sets out the information that is routinely available. Information that is not listed in the guide to information can still be requested and should be made available unless it can be legitimately withheld.